Trump's Iran War Shows How American "Democracy" Really Works

US Pending Home Sales Rebound Off Record Lows, Despite Rising Mortgage Rates After rising in February, US Pending Home Sales were expected to continue to improve in March (+0.5% MoM) but - despite apparently rising mortgage rates - sales rose 1.5% MoM (even with February revised up to +2.5% MoM). This dragged pending home sales up to +1.8% YoY (to the highest level since Nov 2024)... Source: Bloomberg ...extending its bounce off record lows... Source: Bloomberg “Contract signings rose in March despite higher mortgage rates, pointing to pent-up housing demand,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence...

J&J's Proposed $5.5 Billion Talc Settlement May "Lift Remaining Overhang" On Shares, Says Guggenheim Johnson & Johnson announced late Monday that it had reached an agreement to commit $5.5 billion to resolve most lawsuits alleging its talc products caused ovarian cancer. The settlement could end 15 years of litigation and "lift the remaining overhang" on J&J shares, according to one institutional trading desk. The "comprehensive resolution," as described by J&J, requires participation from law firms representing at least 95% of pending state and federal claims. The company faces roughly 76,000 lawsuits,...

Gold At $155,000 An Ounce Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance The fellas over at Zero Hedge put up a Tweet last week that floated a wild monetary thought experiment: they said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could theoretically “buy back” our roughly $40 trillion in U.S. government debt using cash from the Treasury General Account. There would just be one small detail standing in the way…the government would first have to re-mark its gold reserves to somewhere around $155,000 per ounce. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it probably sounds outright insane. But the basic...